The right drug for the right patient at the right time is the holy grail of medicine. Doctors come closest to this grail when they treat an infection: they identify the offending bacterium and then, based on its identity, prescribe a specific antibiotic. Still, the strategy is rather generic: it’s aimed at the affliction itself, not tailored to the particular patient with the affliction.
To be sure, this one-size-fits-all approach often works, but it can miss the mark, sometimes with tragic consequences. What if doctors could treat diseases based on the specific genes, enzymes, and biochemistry of a patient? This is in fact the goal of an ambitious new project called “precision medicine.” In the eyes of many scientists, precision medicine shimmers on the therapeutic horizon. For physicians and patients, it’s the stuff of dreams.
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